H. Pylori (do you know what it is?)

I thought I would tell everyone about my weekend of fun, now that I am feeling better.

Thursday, after lunch, my stomach started hurting in the center area. Since I had just had a fairly bad meal for lunch (a happy meal from McD), I was sure I was having gallbladder problems and that they would go away as soon as my lunch had digested. Unfortunately, the pain just got worse throughout the day and night. By the time I got to work on Friday, I could not laugh or cough without severe pain and a sharp pain was there everytime that I moved. It was bad enough that I decided to ask Dr. S about it.

We decided that it could be my gallbladder but it was now more left sided than right and I had not eated since lunch the day before. (For those of you who do not know, your gallbladder is in your upper right abdomen and usually only hurts for a few hours after eating) I called and made an appointment with my doctor for that afternoon and tried to "muscle" my way through work. We also decided to go ahead and order an abdominal ultrasound before my appointment so that we could see the gallstones if I really had them and then know what to do. As the morning progressed, Dr. S even thought about just calling the surgeon and having them take out my gallbladder before doing anything else. (She said that if I had my gallbladder out on Friday afternoon, I would probably be able to come back to work on Monday)

I went and had my ultrasound and then went to my appointment with the doctor. I did not have any gallstones on the u/s so we were stuck trying to figure out what was going on. Our thoughts ranged from musculoskeletal pain to gastritis to a pulmonary embolism (which would have been a BAD deal...that was reaching though). She finally said that she would order a CT for Monday and go to the ER over the weekend if it got any worse. Right before I was going to leave, she thought about doing a test for Helicobacter Pylori,just because I was already there...that would be an easy answer to the problem.

Well, what do you know...it was positive!! That is good because I didn't have to go get a CT or anything else, but it takes a while to get better. I am just now feeling like I can really eat very much. (We went to dinner on Friday night...that was an interesting experience due to my stomach pain).

H. Pylori is a bacteria you can get in your stomach that causes abdominal pain and can cause ulcers. Usually if you get rid of the bacteria, your risk of ulcers greatly decreases. The bad part is that I have to take 4 pills in the AM and 4 pills in the PM for TWO WEEKS!! I have only taken it for 4 days and I am already tired of it! I am feeling better though so I guess it is working. (Jennifer, you should ask your doctor about doing a test for H. Pylori...it is actually present in about 30% of the population)

Hope everyone is having a GREAT week!!